Thirty billion-rupee (INR) Suguna Group, enthused by the good response to its concept of Suguna Daily Fressh, its exclusive chicken retail outlets, is seeking to expand its footprint across southern India and plans to roll out 100-150 such outlets during the year, reports Financial Chronicle.

The Coimbatore-based company will invest INR 1.20 to 1.5 billion this year in feed mills in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Nagpur as part of the ongoing expansion. Later, it will expand to the northern and western regions, hitherto not fully tapped by the company.

At present, Suguna has 45 Daily Fressh stores in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka on the franchisee model. The group launched its retail initiative last year to sell chicken in a 'clean ambience with hygienic storage and packing' after a successful pilot model in Coimbatore.

"There has been a tremendous response to our stores. Traditional and modern retail stores used to sell 60 to 100 kilos of our chicken per month, while our own stores have been selling about 3,000 kilos a month. An increasing number of people prefer exclusive outlets and we plan to add 100 to 150 franchisee-operated stores this year across the south," B. Sundararajan, managing director, Suguna Poultry Farm, told Financial Chronicle.

The company is also setting up feed mills, which will source raw materials from farmers and produce feed to supply to all poultry broiler contract farms in the respective regions in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Nagpur. The unit near Bangalore, with a capacity 1,400 tonnes per day, has commenced operations recently and the Hyderabad unit with the same capacity is expected to start operations by early 2010.

The company is also setting up a soya-crushing unit with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes a day in Nagpur. It will commence operations in the next two months. The estimated total investment for this project is INR 2.3 billion. "This financial year, we will focus primarily on the northern and eastern regions as we have already established our presence in southern and western regions with about 30-35 per cent market share in chicken production," Mr Sundararajan added.

With all these initiatives, the company hopes to clock a turnover of INR 40 billion by the end of this financial year," Mr Sundararajan said.